Saturday, October 13, 2007

While I have already posted on this topic, I am going to do a more in-depth blog on this matter (at the “The Drinking Hole”) that I will post here.Mind you I do not post much at this site [The Drinking Hole site] in general (as my interests ultimately lie elsewhere), but this topic is one that I believe needs more reflection by those persons who feel that Soy is “the way to either replace proteins, vitamin B12, or simply ad to a “healthy” diet.

Myths

One of the first myths is that the Asian world eats a lot of it.The truth of the matter s quite different than others would have us believe.The average consumption of soy foods in Japan and China is 10 grams (about 2 teaspoons) per day. Asians consume soy foods in small amounts as a condiment, and not as a replacement for animal foods.

This is a refutation of what I am constantly told by many – at my work – that al we need to do is look to the Asian culture for evidence of health verses quantity of intake.Another myth that bugs me is the myth that soy products, even fermented soy products (which are superior to regular soy more common to large production quantities), provide a good source for vitamin B12 in vegetarian/vegan diets.The truth of the matter is that the compound that resembles vitamin B12 in soy cannot be used by the human body; in fact, soy foods cause the body to require more B12.

Why do I delineate between fermented soy and modern production methods which differ from the ancient ways of producing soy enriched products?Because fermentation neutralizes toxins in soybeans, and are processed in a way that denatures proteins and increases levels of carcinogens.Denatured is defined as used here as:

to cause the tertiary structure of a protein to unfold, as with heat, alkali, or acid, so that some of its original properties, especially its biological activity, are diminished or eliminated.

This is what effectively isn’t being done in most of today’s modern soy products, speaking here of many of the tofu’s and soy milks as well as the many other products.

Tempe, Miso and Nato would be a better choice for soy intake as they are fermented, see the video below for a better explanation than I can give:

Greedy Corporate Soy Producers!

From soy milk, tofu, and textured protein to mayonnaise, bakery products, margarine, and ice cream, soy products may be found in most processed foods in the supermarket and fast food chains, inflicting hormonal imbalances which may lead to cancer, osteoporosis, obesity, heart disease, sexual development abnormalities, learning disabilities, immune deficiencies, and infertility. The US Government sends soy products to foreign lands to mitigate hunger and malnutrition and thus causes even greater malnutrition, despite nearly half a century of research warning of the dangers of soy products.

"The industry has known for years that soy contains many toxins. At first they told the public that the toxins were removed by processing. When it became apparent that processing could not get rid of them, they claimed that these substances were beneficial. Your government granted a health claim to a substance that is poisonous, and the industry lied to the public to sell more soy." Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (1999, 2nd edition, New Trends Publishing)

This is another thing that baffles me.Most of the people that follow these diets tend to be liberal, and many of these liberal person’s have a “conspiratorial eye” towards corporations and their greed factor as well as the government aspect, specifically government “funded” by corporations.These people generally do not trust all the products these corporations push, but they say this while not connecting the fact that the soy industry is a huge multi-billion-dollar making conglomerate of corporately owned money making people that will not allow negative news about their products to reach the common man.Now obviously I do not adhere to these conspiracy theories as do my more left-leaning counterparts.But for them to believe that only products they don’t use are guided by corporate entities is, well, an uneducated supposition.I hear about who funded which study in regards to countering anthropogenic global warming, but this same criteria is not applied to their own “golden calves.”

"Each year, research on the health effects of soy and soybean components seems to increase exponentially. Furthermore, research is not just expanding in the primary areas under investigation, such as cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis; new findings suggest that soy has potential benefits that may be more extensive than previously thought."

So writes Mark Messina, PhD, General Chairperson of the Third International Soy Symposium, held in Washington, DC, in November 1999.1 For four days, well-funded scientists gathered in Washington made presentations to an admiring press and to their sponsors - United Soybean Board, American Soybean Association, Monsanto, Protein Technologies International, Central Soya, Cargill Foods, Personal Products Company, SoyLife, Whitehall-Robins Healthcare and the soybean councils of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota.

The symposium marked the apogee of a decade-long marketing campaign to gain consumer acceptance of tofu, soy milk, soy ice cream, soy cheese, soy sausage and soy derivatives, particularly soy isoflavones like genistein and diadzen, the oestrogen-like compounds found in soybeans. It coincided with a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision, announced on October 25, 1999, to allow a health claim for products "low in saturated fat and cholesterol" that contain 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving. Breakfast cereals, baked goods, convenience food, smoothie mixes and meat substitutes could now be sold with labels touting benefits to cardiovascular health, as long as these products contained one heaping teaspoon of soy protein per 100-gram serving.

These industries and corporations have a lot of money invested in as well as to be made by selling their product.So these people are not un-biased in their “marketing of soy products.One customer asked what the problem with adding soy to diets would be, I will explain some of the adverse effects of it, as well as exploding a big myth about something I hear all the time, which is, blaming early puberty on anti-biotic and steroid infused Beef.I will argue that as more soy is added to products we will see earlier puberty in females and more erectile dysfunction (ED) in men.Not to mention an increase in obesity in children and adults.

Childhood Obesity, Early Puberty, Erectile Dysfunction

Estrogenic isoflavones, such as genistein and daidzein, are present in virtually all natural-ingredient rodent diets that use soy as a source of protein. Since these compounds are endocrine-active, it is important to determine whether the amounts present in rodent diets are sufficient to affect sexual development. The present study consisted of in vitro and in vivo parts. In the in vitro portion, human hepatoma cells were transfected with either rat estrogen receptor (ER) alpha or beta plus an estrogen-responsive luciferase reporter gene. Genistein and daidzein were complete agonists at both ERs, genistein being more potent than daidzein, and both compounds were more potent at ER beta than ER alpha. In combined studies with estradiol, genistein exerted additive effects with estradiol in vitro. In the in vivo portion of the study, groups of six pregnant Sprague-Dawley females were fed one of the following four diets, and the pups were maintained on the same diets until puberty: (1) a natural-ingredient, open-formula rodent diet (NIH-07) containing 16 mg genistein and 14 mg daidzein per 100 g of feed; (2) a soy- and alfalfa-free diet (SAFD) in which casein and corn oil were substituted for soy and alfalfa meal and soy oil, respectively, that contained no detectable isoflavones; (3) SAFD containing 0.02% genistein (GE.02); or (4) SAFD containing 0.1% genistein (GE.1). In the GE.1 group, effects of dietary genistein included a decreased rate of body-weight gain, a markedly increased (2.3-fold) uterine/body weight (U/BW) ratio on postnatal day (pnd) 21, a significant acceleration of puberty among females, and a marginal decrease in the ventral prostate weight on postnatal day (pnd) 56. However, developmental differences among the groups fed SAFD, GE.02, or NIH-07 were small and suggested minimal effects of phytoestrogens at normal dietary levels. In particular, on pnd 21, the U/BW ratio of the GE.02 and NIH-07 groups did not differ significantly from that of the SAFD group. Only one statistically significant difference was detected between groups fed SAFD and NIH-07: the anogenital distance (AGD) of female neonates on pnd 1 whose dams were fed NIH-07 was 12% larger than that of neonates whose dams were fed SAFD. The results suggest that normal amounts of phytoestrogens in natural-ingredient rodent diets may affect one developmental parameter, the female AGD, and that higher doses can affect several other parameters in both males and females. Based on these findings, we do not suggest replacing soy- and alfalfa-based rodent diets with phytoestrogen-free diets in most developmental toxicology studies. However, phytoestrogen-free diets are recommended for endocrine toxicology studies at low doses, to determine whether interactive effects may occur between dietary phytoestrogens and man-made chemicals.

Epidemiological evidence suggests that isoflavone phytoestrogens may reduce the risk of cancer, osteoporosis, and heart disease, effects at least partially mediated by estrogen receptors alpha and beta (ERalpha and ERbeta). Because isoflavone dietary supplements are becoming increasingly popular and are frequently advertised as natural alternatives to estrogen replacement therapy, we have examined the effects of one of these supplements on estrogen-dependent behavior and ERalpha- and ERbeta-dependent gene expression in the brain. In the adult female rat brain, 17beta-estradiol treatment decreased ERbeta messenger RNA signal in the paraventricular nucleus by 41%, but supplement treatment resulted in a 27% increase. The regulation of ERbeta in the paraventricular nucleus is probably via an ERbeta-dependent mechanism. Similarly, in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, supplement treatment diminished the estrogen-dependent up-regulation of oxytocin receptor by 10.5%. The regulation of oxytocin receptor expression in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus is via an ERalpha-dependent mechanism. Supplement treatment also resulted in a significant decrease in receptive behavior in estrogen- and progesterone-primed females. The observed disruption of sexual receptivity by the isoflavone supplement is probably due to antiestrogenic effects observed in the brain. These results suggest that isoflavone phytoestrogens are antiestrogenic on both ERalpha- and ERbeta-dependent gene expression in the brain and estrogen-dependent behavior.

We report here the effects of oral micronized estradiol and soy phytoestrogens on uterine weight, choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and nerve growth factor (NGF) mRNAs in the frontal cortex and hippocampus of ovariectomized young and retired breeder rats. Within each age category, 15 bilaterally ovariectomized rats were randomized equally into three groups: control (OVX), estradiol (E2), and soy phytoestrogens (SBE). The OVX rats were fed a casein/lactalbumin-based control diet; the E2 rats were fed with the control diet with added estradiol; and the SBE rats were fed with the control diet with added soy phytoestrogens. After 8 weeks of treatment, blood, uteri, frontal cortex, and hippocampus were collected at necropsy. Results showed that the uterine weights and serum estradiol concentrations were significantly higher in the E2 group compared with those in the OVX and SBE groups. In the hippocampus of young rats, E2 treatment resulted in significantly higher NGF mRNA levels than no treatment (OVX), and NGF mRNA levels in the SBE group were intermediate between the E2 and OVX groups. ChAT mRNA levels were significantly higher in the frontal cortex of E2 and SBE-treated retired breeder rats compared to OVX retired breeder rats. There were no differences among treatment groups for ChAT mRNA levels in the frontal cortex of young rats and in the hippocampus of both young and retired breeder rats. Our data suggest that soy phytoestrogens may function as estrogen agonists in regulating ChAT and NGF mRNAs in the brain of female rats.

High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.

Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.

Vitamin B12 analogs in soy are not absorbed and actually increase the body’s requirement for B12.

Soy foods increase the body’s requirement for vitamin D.

Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein.

Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.

Free glutamic acid or MSG, a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing and added to many soy foods.

Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and the kidneys.

(SOY INFANT FORMULA — BIRTH CONTROL PILLS FOR BABIES)

Babies fed soy-based formula have 13,000 to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula.

Infants exclusively fed soy formula receive the estrogenic equivalent of at least five birth control pills per day.

Male infants undergo a “testosterone surge” during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, baby boys are programmed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of their sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior.

Pediatricians are noticing greater numbers of boys whose physical maturation is delayed, or does not occur at all, including lack of development of the sexual organs. Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions.

Soy infant feeding—which floods the bloodstream with female hormones that inhibit testosterone—cannot be ignored as a possible cause for these tragic developments. In animals, soy feeding indicates that phytoestrogens in soy are powerful endocrine disrupters.

Almost 15 percent of white girls and 50 percent of African-American girls show signs of puberty such as breast development and pubic hair, before the age of eight. Some girls are showing sexual development before the age of three. Premature development of girls has been linked to the use of soy formula and exposure to environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE.

Friday, October 12, 2007

This is why many on the Left liked the Petraeus ad that MoveOn.org put in the paper; they are a Marxist linked group.And anyone knows of course that Marxists like propaganda.So when a Marxist connected group puts out a “political ad,” all the propagandists start to blog on how true it is… when we all really know that Petraeus was passing on the positive info that truly happened since the surge, see the following two pages from a larger article found in the September 24th edition of the National Review:

Click on the scans to enlarge… again to make even clearer

But these facts do not matter to the Marxian politics imbued in the MoveOn.org people and their affiliates, whom George Soros gives money to all of them in one form or another.I will post just a few pages from a great book entitled Radical Road Maps, one of the only books from World Net Daily (props) that I enjoyed:

I think this will better explain the ad below from YouTube that shows who is really in the driver seat of the Democratic Party.The Left can sugar coat their intentions all they want, but their deep connections to Marxist philosophy is coming to fruition:

The Lefties of the world need to make a choice, support propaganda like the Petraeus ad put out by a known Marxist front group, or stand up for our men and women in the uniform.The choice is theirs.

This is one of the dumbest things I have heard!First Arafat, now Gore?Political madness gone awry!I am importing a portion of an article that regulates this movie in the public schools in Britain… which is the thinking behind by friend bringing me into his class once a year and give an anti-man-caused global warming speech.This is how he see’s the countering of bad science and bad politics in a time where American schools are all about one-sided issues (e.g., secular dogma).

But Newman, the AAP reported, pointed to the British ruling, which requires teachers to tell students of 11 inaccuracies in Gore's film.

"The truth, as inconvenient as it is to Al Gore, is that his so-called documentary contained critical distortions that are quite contrary to the principles of good documentary journalism," Newman said. "Good documentaries should be factually correct. Clearly this documentary is not."

"An Inconvenient Truth" won Oscars in 2006 for best documentary and best original song.

Dimmock took the British government to court after then-Environment Secretary David Miliband launched a plan to send "An Inconvenient Truth" to all British schools, announcing the scientific debate over man-made global warming "is over."

The judge, however, sided with Dimmock, who alleged the documentary breached the Education Act of 1996 by portraying "partisan political views."

The court ruled the Guidance Notes to Teachers must make clear that:

The film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.

If teachers present the film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.

Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies, according to the court, are:

The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found that the film was misleading: Over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.

The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.

The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr. Gore had misread the study: In fact four polar bears drowned, and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, throwing Europe into an ice age: The Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt, causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.

The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting; the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.

The film suggests that sea levels could rise by seven meters, causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact, the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimeters over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

This is a great venture that will hopefully broaden the “intellectual climate” rather than the global climate.I have been a fan of Junk Science for quite some time, but this new venture is a good attempt to reach the YouTubers in the world.Watch this short video and please, please understand that they just undermined Al Gores whole life’s work.

Oh… Junk Science has a $125,000 prize for someone who can scientifically prove man is causing global warming.Should be an easy grab for all those Green Peacers, right?

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Alyeska said: “I don't see enough evidence that God exists therefore [therefore] I don't believe in him.” This is part of the problem; people believe that evidence only constitutes “scientific” evidence. Someone else said that what I posted didn’t constitute “scientific evidence that the Deity exists,” therefore, God, apparently, doesn’t exist. When people hear the word “evidence,” they seem to correlate it to the “scientific method,” or, empiricism. I will illustrate from a previous debate a few years back.

Ralson said:

Atheist to Christian: "Prove to me that God exists."

Christian to Atheist: "Prove to me that God does not exist."

Now, the atheist can never have all knowledge and be everywhere in the past to present all at once. So the atheist can never disprove God’s existence. However, the theist, with only one percent of one percent of total knowledge, can prove God’s existence. How? You might ask. Because there could be enough positive evidence in what we do know to prove a point. It may not be a hundred percent proof, but it would be a preponderance of evidence.However, Alyeska needs negative evidence to prove your point (the ball is in your court), and this you cannot attain because you are neither omnipotent nor omniscient [God, in other words… you would have to be that which you are trying to deny].

The question then is: What evidence do you need? Or better yet: What kind of evidence? Can Science help? Lets see… the scientific method merely shows that if miracles did occur in the past, that science (as currently defined) could not prove, or disprove, their occurrence. You cannot find out what Napoleon did at the battle of Austerlitz by asking him to come and fight it again in a laboratory with the same combatants, the same terrain, the same weather, and in the same age. You have to go to the records. We have not, in fact, proved that science excludes miracles: we have only proved that the question of miracles, like the innumerable other questions [of history], excludes laboratory treatment. And Christianity claims to be a historical belief. The resurrection of Jesus was an historical event, one that cannot be repeated in the laboratory. So how, then, do we deal with the historic claims of Christianity? Like any other historical event, we go to the records.

"What are the distinctive sources for our beliefs about the past? Most of the beliefs we have about the past come to us by the testimony of other people. I wasn’t present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I didn’t see my father fight in the [S]econd [W]orld [W]ar. I have been told about these events by sources that I take to be reliable. The testimony of others is generally the main source of our beliefs about the past…. So all our beliefs about the past depend on testimony, or memory, or both.” (Philosophy for Dummies, by Tom Morris, pp. 57-58)

“In advanced societies specialization in the gathering and production of knowledge and its wider dissemination through spoken and written testimony is a fundamental socio-epistemic fact, and a very large part of each persons body of knowledge and belief stems from testimony.” (The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, edited by Robert Audi[2nd ed.], p. 909)

“But it is clear that most of what any given individual knows comes from others; palpably with knowledge of history, geography, or science, more subtly with knowledge about every day facts such as when we were born..” (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich, p. 869)

So when Shadow Warchief says, “I haven't seen a single shred of evidence for the existence of God,”is he defining what evidence is and how we get knowledge about past events, and then going to the sources to see if they are credible or not?

From this past conversation the point is made that evidence isn’t always empirical. And until recently, and still in most cases, eyewitness testimony is the end all in swaying minds in the court. In fact Texas is trying to pass a law that if three people are witness to a murder they get a fast lane to the electric chair. In other words, eyewitness testimony is powerful.This is what the Gospels purport to be. In fact, there are four witnesses to the events to the life of Jesus. Most reject these eyewitness testimonies on the premise that miracles are impossible; this, however, is neither the empirical nor the historical methods in action.

Now we all know that one of the reasons people lie is to get fame or fortune – usually both. So one hypothesis is that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the other disciples “created” the Christian religion for gain. This would require that twelve men conspired together to create a false story; they lied in other words.

People have died believing a lie to be true, however, I know of no one dying, willingly, for a cause that they knew to be a lie, let alone 11 men. I can trust the apostle’s testimonies because they died martyrs’ deaths because of two things believed:

The resurrection of Christ;

And their belief in him as the Son of God (which in Jewish culture was claiming to be God, which Jesus clearly did)

They were tortured and flogged, and they finally faced death by some of the cruelest methods then known:

Peter – crucified

Andrew – crucified

Matthew – the sword

John – natural

James, son of Alphaeus – crucified

Philip – crucified

Simon – crucified

Thaddaeus – killed by arrows

James, brother of Jesus – stoned

Thomas – spear thrust

Bartholomew – crucified

James, son of Zebedee – the sword.

Remember that Clement of Rome, Ignatius (martyred), Papias, and Polycarp were contemporaries of some of the apostles. In fact, John discipled Polycarp (martyred) who discipled Iranaeus (suffered as a confessor for his faith) who discipled Hippolytus. (List taken from More Than a Carpenter, and He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus, by josh McDowell.)

So, in a court of law, profit or fame is no motive for the continued lie – being that they died for the “supposed” lie. The Romans could have easily put a stop to this growing movement by simply getting a confession from one of the twelve or subsequent church fathers that this whole thing was a hoax. The Roman authorities could have produced Jesus body as well to end this quickly spreading “cult.” However, Paul states emphatically that over 500 witnesses saw Jesus alive after his death on the cross. There are other items of interest showing that the testimony of the gospels is true and trustworthy. Most simply reject it out of hand due to a prior commitment to a materialist belief, that is, all that exists is matter (and some would say motion [dialectical materialist]).

Another interesting item that historians make note of is that at least four generations for a myth to get started from the actual historical point. For instance, people may say that Elvis is not dead, however, there are eyewitnesses still alive today that can confirm that he is indeed dead. And if someone today said that he is Elvis, it can be refuted. The same applies to Jesus’ day and the gospel accounts. All of the contemporary attacks against the gospels place the date of their writing at about A.D. 190 to A.D. 300. However, tomb stone inscriptions dating to about A.D. 41 have inscriptions about Jesus’ deity, thus doing away with the theory that the myth of Jesus being God was a late evolution (myth) created by the early church late in the second-century. Almost all historians – secular and Biblical – date I Corinthians 15 at no later that A.D. 55, with a date closer to A.D. 47. This was taken from an earlier “formula” (well-known, passed on saying) placing the earliest creed of the Christian faith at about A.D. 40. Allusions to Luke were turned up in some Nag Hammadi papyri that are dated to A.D. 49, not to mention the Magdalene papyri (of Matthew) dating in at A.D. 55.

Within the first 250 years the New Testament alone has over 24,000 manuscripts, papyri’s and fragments of the gospel record. By contrast Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” has a total to date of 10 copies (not whole ones either). The spread between the New Testament being written (earliest allusion to Luke is A.D. 49, the earliest creedal formula [I Corinthians 15] is A.D. 47, and the earliest fragment of Matthew is a Coptic version dated to A.D. 55.It was taken from an earlier Greek copy that predates A.D. 55) and the time the event happened is less than 20 years; by contrast, the “Gallic Wars” is 1,000 years. The same holds for Livy, Plato, Tacitus, Homer, Herodotus, etc.!)

I will post here a paper I wrote for a friends class, I it long, but was meant to disprove the professors belief that Christ being worshipped as God was a late myth dating to the middle/end of the second to third-century.The professor believed as well that the New Testament was written at the end of the second-century.Two propositions easily refuted, I will include part of the introduction here, and then post the a portion of the paper:“The paper, as a whole, is merely a positive response to claims made inside a classroom full of unsuspecting students who will undoubtedly – at least for some – walk away from this class with a negative view of the Judeo-Christian worldview.Thinking all the while that a learned woman of religious history has proven her points by history and the facts.As one reads my paper, they will come to realize that this is in fact not the case, and that many will falter in there faith on college campuses not because of the facts of history, but because of a rewriting of them and the driving bias behind such rewriting.”

Nag Hammadi

Understanding the political motives behind modern feminism and its attacks on the Christian faith will help shed some light on how the modern feminists endeavor to interpret religious history and theology.A feminist author that has delved into the early Gnostic tradition and writings is Elaine Pagels.She uses this understanding of Gnostics to attack, and ultimately reject, Christianity.She states that, for one thing, the Christian faith is patriarchal and should be rejected for that alone, this will all be dealt with herein.For many, many years, all that was understood about Gnosticism came through primarily the writings of the early church fathers, more specifically, Irenaeus[1] (died about A.D. 200), Tertullian (died about A.D. 220), Hippolytus[2] (died about A.D. 236),[3] and Origen (died about A.D. 254).This is no longer the case, as the Gnostic writings have recently come to light again due to an interesting archaeological find at Nag Hammadi (300 miles south of Cairo in the NileRiver region of Egypt, in 1945).[4]The 52 surviving[5] Coptic writings are firmly placed from A.D. 350-400, based on the type of script and papyrus utilized.However, some of these documents were most probably taken from earlier Greek versions that are, as of yet, not to be found.It is here where the scholarly consensus on the dates of these earlier Greek versions comes to an end.

The Gospel of Thomas, one of these documents found at Nag Hammadi, is, by far, the most well known “gospel” of Gnostic tradition.This popularity can, in part, be attributed to the Jesus Seminar[6] and more recently the movie Stigmata.Some scholars theorize that the date of the Greek version that predated the Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas is around A.D. 140-200.This date is important to some because of various theories promulgated by the likes of Marcus Borge,[7] Robert Funk,[8] John Dominic Crossan,[9] Elaine Pagels,[10] and others.Why this early date is important to these authors mentioned is that they all demand a late date for the canonical Gospels and the theological understanding of who Jesus was understood to be.

As an example, in Pagels book The Gnostic Gospels, the thesis is put forward that the second-century church had a panoply of documents and theologies to choose from, saying in effect that both the Gnostic and orthodox traditions circulated alongside each other.She goes on to say that because canonical, ecclesiastical, theological issues and views hadn’t been settled yet, a struggle ensued and the orthodox views won out over the others and became predominate.Pagels makes the point that rather than distinguishing itself as the superior historical and theological view, orthodoxy achieved victory largely on political and social grounds.Thus Pagels asks:

Why were these texts buried – and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them.[11]

Is there a response to this controversy?Only for those interested in a historical search and not so interested in their presupposed biases or ideologies.One supposition that is current between all the authors mentioned above is that the Biblical Gospels were written around the same date as the supposed Greek versions of the Gnostic writings.For instance, “…the Gnostic holy books must be assigned such an early date that Christianity itself may be seen as no more than a ‘branch of gnosticism.’”[12]A late date for the Christian documents is the one joining influence between all those who put a heavy emphasis on the Gnostic documents.However, this can easily be shown to be a mistaken belief.This brings us to another interesting archaeological find, which involves some caves at Qumran, a small area off the shores of the Dead Sea in Palestine.[13]The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they are popularly known, has shed some light on just how early the Biblical Gospels were circulating.Without going into much detail, I will lay out some of the reasoning (evidence) behind the rejection of the Gnostic tradition and writings while accepting the “superior historical and theological view” that orthodoxy rightly deserves.

This, then, would deal a deathblow to the various interpretations about the importance of Gnosticism, not the least of which is the thesis that orthodoxy “achieved [its] victory largely on political and social grounds,” which seems hard to swallow considering the emphasis in placing women in positions of authority, thus challenging the patriarchy in Orthodox Judaism and Roman culture (this will be elucidated on shortly)

Too Young to Date

Not only did the Dead Sea Scrolls yield portions of, and even entire books from the Old Testament, the scrolls offered up some New Testament fragments as well.[14](The following chart uses the numbering system established for manuscripts, for example, “7Q5” means fragment 5 from Qumran cave 7:)

Mark 4:28___7Q6?­___Dated to A.D. 50

Mark 6:48___7Q15___A.D. ?

Mark 6:52,53___7Q5___A.D. 50

Mark 12:17___7Q7___A.D. 50

Acts 27:38___7Q6?___A.D. 60

Romans 5:11,12___7Q9___A.D. 70[+]

1 Timothy 3:16; 4:1-3___7Q4___A.D. 70[+]

James 1:23,24___7Q8___A.D. 70[+][15], [16]

There are also illusions to the Gospel of Luke in 4Q246, which date to A.D. 49.[17]A little-known papyrus of Matthew has opened the trained eye as well.The Magdalen Papyrus, named after the university that houses it, corroborates three traditions: that St. Matthew actually wrote the Gospel bearing his name; that he wrote it within a generation of Jesus’ death (dated to A.D. 60); and that the gospel stories are true.[18]This portion of Matthew is a Coptic translation; the original Aramaic version pre-dates this, obviously, placing Matthew around A.D. 50.Not to mention that almost all Bible critics place Paul’s first epistle at A.D. 52-57,[19] and the creed in that epistle (1 Cor. 15:3) is dated about ten years earlier than that, “Paul had not invented it but had been the one who transferred to them what he had received” (4:1).[20]1 Corinthians 15:3-7reads:

“I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter﻿ and then by the twelve apostles. After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of his followers﻿ at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.” (NLT)[21]

“Handed on to you … what I had received” (NRSV) is the language of what scholars call “traditioning:”[22] Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it; memorization was a central feature of ancient education.The early Christian community had already memorized, codified, and passed on creeds within about ten years of Jesus death, this is very important.Evidence of this comes also from early Christian tombs with reference to who Jesus was understood to be, further confirming the Gospels.[23]One tomb I wish to focus on, as an example (there are many others[24]), is one found by professor Sukenik as reported in American Journal of Archaeology:

“When the ossuary with four crosses on its sides was found there was not the slightest possible doubt as to the antiquity of the cross [marks], because it was clear that these [ossuaries] had not been touched from the moment they had been placed inside until the day we took them out….I noticed the inscription on one of the ossuaries in which the name ‘Jesus’ was clearly discernable, followed here not by the usual [second] name, but by a description or an exclamation.”[25]

After the name “Jesus,” the exclamation or dedication read “y’ho,” meaning “Jehovah” or “the Lord.”The full inscription of the ossuary reads: “[To] Jesus, the Lord.”In light of the A.D. 42 date for the sealing of this tomb, the presence of this dedication to “Jesus, the Lord” attests to the Christians’ acceptance of Jesus Christ as God within ten years of the death and resurrection of Jesus.These are merely a few of the many evidences for an early date for the Christian faith.This is important because most historians observe that in order for a historical event to be metamorphosed into myth, it needs to be at least three to four generations removed from the time it occurred whereas the New Testament is within one generation of the actual event.

New Testament Documents vs. Ancient Documents

The earliest partial copy of Caesar’s The Gallic Wars, which historians accept, dates 1,000 years after it was written. The first complete copy of the Odyssey, by Homer, dates to 2,200 years after it was written. When the interval between the writing of the New Testament and earliest copies is compared to other ancient works, the New Testament proves to be much closer to the time of the original.There are over 5,500 Greek copies of the Gospels; this is far and away the most we have of any ancient work.Many ancient writings have been transmitted to us by only a handful of manuscripts, but these are accepted as reliable commentary on the events they describe (Catullus – three copies, the earliest copy being dated at 1,600 years after it was written; Herodotus – eight copies, the first being dated to 1,300 years later).[26]

Not only do the New Testament documents have more manuscript evidence and close time interval (which no other writing of antiquity shares) between the original writing and its earliest copy, but they were also translated into several other languages at an early date. Translation of a document into another language was rare in the ancient world, so this is an added plus for the New Testament as one could compare for errors between the many versions and copies.This ability to compare and search for grammatical errors within the plethora of early New Testament text is nonexistent in other ancient documents[27] – Homer’s Iliad [somewhat] excluded.

The number of copies of the versions of the Greek New Testament is in excess of 18,000, with possibly as many as 25,000. This is further evidence that helps us establish the New Testament text.Even if we did not posses the 5,500[+] Greek manuscripts or the almost 25,000 copies of the versions, the text of the New Testament could still be reproduced within 250 years from its composition! How? Merely by the writings of the early Christians in commentaries, letters, and the like.These ancient writers quote the biblical text, thus giving us another witness to the text of the New Testament.John Burgon has catalogued more than 86,000 citations by the early church fathers that cite different parts of the New Testament. Thus we observe that there is so much more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament text than any other comparable writings in the ancient world. We can reconstruct the entire New Testament just with these early quotes, except for eleven verses. They were quoting from manuscripts that were written prior to their citing them, obviously then, exemplifying the plethora of widely distributed copies of the early Gospels.[28]

The information above does away with the belief of modern critics (like those of the “Jesus Seminar”) who say that Mark was the first gospel written about A.D. 80, ending with John in about A.D. 180. This does away with the gospel of Q as well the belief that Christ – worshipped as God – was a late myth. Some of the reasons that the gospels are accepted as trustworthy eyewitness accounts are as follows:

The changed demeanor of the apostles from cowardly to bold witnesses to the resurrection after meeting the resurrected Jesus;

The fact that they died horrible deaths, showing that they really saw the resurrected Jesus, as they had nothing to gain by doing so and everything to lose;

The early dates of the gospels, thus not allowing time for a myth to start;

The early church was Jewish and was based primarily in the immediate vicinity of the death of Jesus. All the Roman government or local officials needed was a body (or confession) to stop the insane claims of His followers;

The fact that the early church fathers lived at the same time as these 500 [+] witnesses who saw the resurrected Christ and his ascension (believers: Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Papius, Polycarp, Quadratus.) (Non-believers [some were contemporaries]: Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Talmudic writings [A.D. 70-200], Lucian, Mara Bar-Serapion, the Gospel of Truth, the Acts of Pontius Pilate.)

Even if we did not have the New Testament or Christian writings, we would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger that: 1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher; 2) many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms; 3) he was rejected by the Jewish leaders; 4) he was crucified under Pontius Pilot in the reign of Tiberius; 5) despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64; 6) all kinds of people from the cities and countryside – men and women, slave and free – worshipped him as God by the beginning of the second century (100 A.D.) (Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, by Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland [general editors], pp. 221-222)

Every turn of the archaeologists spade confirms the Bible more and more – the New Testament alone has over twenty-five thousand archaeological sites alone.Persons, places, and things have been shown to be accurate in these documents… adding top the validity of their testimony as historical documents.

The first witness’ to find Jesus rose were women.Women’s testimony on any issue was not admissible during this time in history and culture.If the apostles were to fabricate a story and want it to be taken as true, the last thing they would have done were use women as the bearers of this truth.

All these and other evidences prove that the New Testament is a reliable history of actual events… and the only reason to reject them is a commitment to a presupposed bias, such as philosophical naturalism.

[1] It is worth noting that Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp, who was in turn discipled by the Apostle John.

[2] Hippolytus was discipled by Irenaeus… this direct lineage to an apostle is important because the early church fathers were in possession of not only written records of the disciples but were also contemporaries of persons who personally knew the apostles and forwarded their understanding of the gospels and who Jesus was (is).Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus, Here’s Life Publishers, San Bernardino: CA [1988], p. 89.

[5] The Nag Hammadi codices were found by an Arab peasant, though, they remained obscure for several years due to several bizarre occurrences, including murder, black market sales and the destruction of some of the findings. footnote #4.

[6] A very scholarly response to the Jesus Seminar is the book edited by Michael J. Wilkins & J. P. Moreland, Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus, Zondervan, Grang Rapids: MI [1995].

[7] The God We Never Knew, Harper, San Francisco: CA [1997]; The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus, Ulysses Press, Berkley: CA [1996].

[8] The Gospel of Jesus: According to the Jesus Seminar,: Polebridge Press, Santa Rosa: CA [1999]; The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? Harper, San Francisco: CA [1998]; Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? Harper, San Francisco: CA [1996]

[9] The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, Harper, San Francisco: CA [1993]; Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, Harper, San Francisco: CA [1995].

[18] Carsten Peter Thiede & Matthew d’Ancona, The Jesus Papyrus: The Most Sensational Evidence on the Origins of the Gospels Since the Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Galilee Doubleday, New York: NY [1996], back cover.